Nuchatlitz adventure

I'm back from my kayaking adventure on the west coast. The trip was great, with amazingly good weather, great people, and a nice mix of exploring the sandy beaches and time on the water.

We saw many sea otters, but never close enough for me to get a good picture. At one campsite, there were two otters that hung out and ate just off our beach at dinner time. Some shorebirds are starting migration south, and I saw some small flocks of semipalmated sandpiper and black turnstones. Lots of driftwood on the beaches, and some interesting plants, like the big-headed sedge below.


The first day was very hot and sunny, and then the fog moved in and kept it a little cooler, but I think I spent the entire trip paddling in a shirt and shorts. We were a big group on this trip, and Ali and Luke, our guides, did a great job keeping us on track and feeding us.

But the day before we were picked up by the water taxi had to be the most spectacular in terms of wildlife. A small group of us went for an afternoon paddle after setting up camp. We were crossing to another island, when one of the group called out "Orca!" and we watched a large male and a smaller companion swim right past us and out towards the ocean. Amazing.

Kayak camping

Even though my camera took a swim, Cheri took some still images with her video camera. This campsite is pretty typical of where we stayed. Every night we'd carry the kayaks up into the woods. The evening tides were so high, the water would come to the very top of the beach at night, so above the tide line was the safest place for our kayaks.

Then in the morning, we'd carry the kayaks back down to the beach, usually at a very low tide, which meant carrying kayaks over lots of algae. The task of packing the kayak usually took us a while. It's amazing how much stuff will fit, but getting there can be a long process.

The low morning tides made for excellent viewing of the intertidal creatures. I thought this group of sea anemones looked like an art installation I've seen somewhere.

And then we'd be off exploring more little islands in the fog.

Johnstone Strait Expedition

We're back from our week long kayak/camping trip with Spirit of the West Adventures. We had a small group of 5 people and a guide, and had some good paddling and lots of great food. We started out in the community of Telegraph Cove where we got picked up by the water taxi to shuttle us out to our first camp. While in Telegraph Cove, we spent some time at the Bones Project, a non-profit whale education center featuring articulated skeletons of marine mammals. They had some great skeletons, but the light made it difficult to photograph. I'm posing next to a blue whale jaw bone.

They also had an articulated fin whale hanging from the ceiling that was pretty amazing.

After checking out the bones, we taxied to our campsite, and from there we explored a number of little islands, camping along beaches and clam shell middens. The paddling and scenery were great. We had some fog, but otherwise the weather was ideal. The only bummer of the trip is I found that salt water and electronics don't mix. My camera took a dive the second day of the trip, and hasn't recovered. Fortunately the memory card still works, or I wouldn't have any pictures to share. This is the lunch site at Mamalilacoola where my camera took a swim off the dock.

This is a totem at the old village site. Luke, our guide, said it might have been a funeral pole.

LeConte Glacier trip

We're back to civilization after our three day kayak trip to LeConte glacier. We did a guided trip with Tongass Kayak Adventures, and had a great time. The kayaking was beautiful, the weather was remarkable, and the people were great. One of our guides said she'd never done a trip where it didn't rain at least once, so we felt priveleged to have spent several days in the sun.
It was very interesting kayaking with a group instead of on our own. On one hand we felt much more secure, and even paddled in our shirt sleeves for most of the time, and it was also fun to meet and interact with other kayakers. We did a lot of laughing around the fire ring, and it was very decadent to be served excellent food after padling all day. But it felt strange to be a little duckling following the momma duck all day. The picture above is one of our lunch spots showing the power of the tides in the area. When we pulled in, the water was out near that point, and we followed a little creek to beach our boats. By the time we were done, the tide was pushing our boats up the inlet.
The tides also strand small bits of iceberg, called bergy bits (really) on the beach. This one was about 6 feet tall. Our base camp faced out towards Fredrick Sound, and the icebergs that calve off the glacier get trapped at the entrance to LeConte bay because there's a big terminal moraine under water. At low tide, it's visible nearly across the entire mouth of the bay, and so as the tide receeded and the bergs hit the mud, they also tend to turn over or break apart.
By the way, those little black spots on top of the iceberg are a pair of bald eagles. The kayaker is our head momma duck, Marja, taking a moment to look up at an iceberg.

Sitka

We've spent the last few days in Sitka, enjoying amazing weather. The first day we went out on a boat trip with Paul Davis of Gallant Adventures to St. Lazarius Island to see nesting puffins and murres. The island is the eroded core of an old volcano, and looks rather otherworldly with basalt cliffs covered in greenery. We also saw sea otters, humpback whales, and a pair of minke whales while out on the water. Quite the morning!

After spending the morning on the water, we took a walk through the totem park, which has a collection of Haida and Tlingit totem poles.










We've taken a couple of kayaking trips around the sound, visiting islands and enjoying the scenery. The first trip we paddled from the harbor and out to Middle Island, with a couple stops for lunch and snacks.

This is a view from the water looking back towards Sitka. The little rock in front is covered with Gulls and Cormorants.
Mount Edgecombe is an old volcano across the sound from Sitka.
The second trip we took, we launched from the beach near our campground at Starrigaven bay and paddled around another group of islands (the name escapes me at the moment) to the north. We were on the water only a few minutes when these four sea lions came to investigate us. They spent several minutes checking us out before moving on.
Lots of eagles in the Sitka area. We saw one catch a fish right in front of us on the water and then carry the fish to its nest.

This is one of the beaches we stopped at. We nick-named it clam beach because the beach was a mix of broken clam shells and black gravel. Each beach we found was different, but it was wonderful discovering these little secluded private spots. I don't think the picture does it justice.

On the water!

Ready to Kayak

As we were in the final planning stages for this Canada/Alaska adventure, we wanted to be able to go out on the water in the places we would be camping, particularly after looking at the map of British Columbia and seeing all those lakes! With our limited amount of space, we decided an inflatable kayak would best suit our needs. We settled on a convertible kayak from Advanced Elements. The kayak can be used as a single or a double kayak, depending on which deck is used. It's worked pretty well so far, although it takes some care making sure everything is aligned while inflating it if we want to track straight. What's even more amazing is how much equipment actually fits in our kayak box.
Be sure to check out the link to "Our Spot Locator Page" in the upper right hand corner of out blog. We have a Spot Satellite Messenger and have been using it to track our progress and stay in touch when we don't have internet service. The page shows the the last seven days of messages, and using Google Maps, you can see where we were at the time the message was sent. For the Spot links that seem to be in the middle of the lake - that is because we were kayaking at the time we sent the signal.